We are all familiar with tricky conversations in our organisations - the ones you put off for as long as possible or perhaps never have at all. But suppose you could handle these conversations in the best way imaginable, what difference would that make?What difference would it make it to you, to your team and to your organisation? Each conversation has an impact on your ultimate results, as there is an inevitable logical thread between you, your team and your organisation’s performance.

Let’s say your conversations are with your team members. If those talks improve, then that means that their conversations are now better. And if your team members are having better conversations - even if only with you to begin with - there is every chance they will start having better conversations with their colleagues too, because they'll have learned from their experience with you.

That then is going to make a difference to the organisation, because you are all doing the work of the organisation. This is the thread through you to the team to the organisation.

Now we can look at the value of tricky or difficult conversations in the context of all conversations. Tricky conversations are a subset and we can identify the value in that subset. If, for example, half of the staff are not having those conversations because they are avoiding them, then your company is missing out on the results those dialogues can bring. In some organisations we know, they don't pick up the phone to have enough conversations with potential clients and that's costing the business hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Similarly if a bunch of conversations are poorly conducted, then you're missing the value of holding them well. Staff are not clear about what they are supposed to do or they have a poor relationship with their manager or a colleague, so they don't feel inspired or motivated to do their best work.

By adding all of those up you can identify to what extent it is worth paying attention to improving these kinds of conversations.